title: Gd(III) functionalized gold nanorods for multimodal imaging applications.
abstract: We demonstrate a novel noncovalent method for producing Gd(III)-functionalized gold nanorods as multimodal contrast agents for MRI and CT imaging. The ligand is connected to the surface of the gold nanorods by a noncovalent bond making the Gd(III) ions directly accessible to water molecules, and resulting in a longitudinal relaxivity as high as 21.3 mM(-1) s(-1). In addition, compared with spherical gold nanoparticles, gold nanorods have more binding sites for Gd(III) ions due to their large surface-to-volume ratio. Benefiting from the advantages of the new type of carry material and the novel fabrication approach, the multimodal imaging probes exhibit a high longitudinal relaxivity r(1) on the order of 1.1 × 10(7) mM(-1) s(-1) on a per-particle basis, which is 24 times higher than that of Gd(III)-ion-functionalized spherical gold nanoparticles. Furthermore, CT imaging shows that such nanoprobes could induce an efficient contrast enhancement when the gold concentration is at least equal to 1.31 mg ml(-1). These results demonstrate that the as-prepared Gd functionalized gold nanorods could provide a new and versatile platform for the development of multimodal imaging probes.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, PR China.
authors.forename: Hongmei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Qinghai
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Baohua
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Kelong
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ai
authors.forename: Pengguo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Lehui
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D008422:Materials Testing; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D015336:Molecular Probe Techniques; D015335:Molecular Probes / Q000138:chemical synthesis*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010316:Particle Size; D013382:Subtraction Technique; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D015335:Molecular Probes; D006046:Gold